The air is thick with smoke as forests burn across the west. Fires with ecological and historical precedence, but fueled by human carelessness and the dismissal of necessary action to mitigate a changing climate. Ash falls from the sky and lands on a world where people have forgotten than they are a part of nature. Believing they are separate, they continue to destroy themselves as they destroy the world. We are not separate. We are the trees. The ashes are our future. In a refusal to slow down, to give up the seduction of shiny cars and fancy phones, we shrug as the rivers run dry and it rains fire. How could we be responsible for something so destructive? Our guilt manifests in apocalyptic nihilism. If we are to kill everything and die, we are going to die as one. A final acknowledgment that we are all connected; part of the whole. That the destruction of nature is the destruction of ourselves. The forests burn and with it our dignity as humans. We can do better than this.

What are you willing to do? What are you willing to give up? How can you help heal yourself and the planet so that future generations don’t live in a world of endless, unnecessary destruction?

Today I witnessed a nearly total solar eclipse of the sun. While I wish I could have made it to the path of totality, the experience was still amazing and strange. As the sun faded, the temperature dropped and the quality of the light shifted to something I had never seen before. It was like being on an alien plant with a dim and cool sun. Right at the point of maximum coverage, light ripples moved across the ground, like a reflection from moving water. These photos are from the pinhole effect of light passing through the leaves of trees. They show the crescent of the sun still visible from behind the moon. This was truly an amazing experience that I hope to someday have again!